The Liar [calibre]

'Does he really think we're going to fall for that? He's scared, he's bloody scared.'

Hey don-Bay ley came up.

'Gated for the rest of term! The bastard!'

'It's just a feeble attempt to try and get the school to turn against the magazine and do his detective work for him,' said Bullock. 'It won't work. Whoever's responsible is too clever.'

Adrian was once more at a loose end that afternoon. It was a Corps day so there was no cricket and he didn't dare climb up to Gladys Winkworth in case he bumped into Trotter again. Officially he should be visiting his old lady and doing odd jobs for her, but she had died of hypothermia the previous term and he hadn't been supplied with a replacement yet. He had just decided to go down to the School Gramophone Library and practise conducting to records, a favourite legal pastime, when he remembered he had a standing invitation to tea from Biffen the French master.

Biffen lived in rather a grand house in its own grounds on the edge of town.

'Hello, sir,' said Adrian. 'It's a Friday, so I thought . . .'

'Healey! How splendid. Come in, come in.'

'I've brought some lemon curd, sir.'

There were about six boys already in the sitting room, talking to Biffen's wife, Lady Helen. Biffen had married her at Cambridge and then taken her back to his old school when he joined as a junior master. They had been here ever since, objects of great pity to the schooclass="underline" an Earl's daughter tied to a no-hope, slow-lane pedagogue.

'I know you!' boomed Lady Helen from the sofa. 'You are Healey from Tickford's House. You were Mosca in the School Play.'

'Healey is in my Lower Sixth French set,' said Biffen.

'And he mobs you appallingly, Humphrey dear. I know.'

'Er, I've brought some lemon curd,' said Adrian.

'How kind. Now, who do you know here?'

Adrian looked round the room.

'Um . . .'

'You'll certainly know Hugo. He's in your House. Go and sit next to him, and get him to stop spoiling my dog.'

Adrian hadn't noticed Cartwright sitting at a window seat, apart from the main group, tossing bits of cake at a spaniel.

'Hi,' he said, sitting down next to him.

'Hi,' said Cartwright.

'Did you pass your exam then?'

'Sorry?'

'Your Grade Three piano. You remember. Last term.'

'Oh, that. Yes thanks.'

'Great.'

More immortal dialogue from the Noel Coward of the seventies.

'So,' said Adrian, 'do you come here ... er ... is this something you've been to many times?'

'Most Fridays,' said Cartwright. 'I've never seen you here before.'

'No, well. . . I've not been invited before.'

'Right.'

'So . . . er . . . what happens exactly?'

'Well, you know, it's just a tea-party, really.'

And so it had proved. Biffen had instigated a book game in which everyone had to own up to books they'd never read. Biffen and Lady Helen called out titles of classic novels and plays and if you hadn't read them you had to put your hand up. Pride and Prejudice, David Copperfield, Animal Farm, Madame Bovary, 1984., Lucky Jim, Sons and Lovers, Othello, Oliver Twist, Decline and Fall, Howards End, Hamlet, Anna Karenina, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the list of unread books that they managed to compile had made them all giggle. They had agreed that by the end of term the list would have to be much more obscure. The only two books that had been read by everyone present were Lord of the Flies and Catch 22 which, Biffen remarked, said much about English teaching at prep schools. It was all a transparent, and to Adrian rather wet, device to get everyone to read more, but it worked.

Adrian, despite the gentility of it all, had rather enjoyed himself and was fired with an enthusiasm for outreading everyone on the Russians, who always sounded the most impressive and impenetrable.

'I mean,' he said to Cartwright as they walked back to Tickford's, 'this place can really get you down. It's not a bad idea to have a sanctuary like that to go to, is it?'

'He's going to be my tutor next year when I'm in the Sixth Form,' said Cartwright. 'I want to go to Cambridge and he's the best at getting you through Oxbridge Entrance apparently.'

'Really? I want to go to Cambridge too!' said Adrian. 'Which college?'

'Trinity, I think.'

'God, me too! My father was there!'

Adrian's father in fact had been to Oxford.

'But Biffo thinks I should apply to St Matthew's. He has a friend there he was in the war with, a Professor Trefusis, supposed to be very good. Anyway, we'd better get a move on. Don't forget we're gated. It's nearly five already.'

'Oh shit,' said Adrian, as they broke into a run.

'Did you read the magazine, then?' he asked as they jogged up the hill to Tickford's.

'Yes,' said Cartwright.

And that was that.

'It was practically a conversation, Tom!'

'Great,' said Tom. 'Thing is . . .'

'It's all settled. He'll join me at Cambridge in my second year. After we've graduated we'll fly to Los Angeles or Amsterdam to get married - you can there, you know. Then we'll set up house in the country. I'll write poetry, Hugo will play the piano and look beautiful. We'll have two cats called Spasm and Clitoris. And a spaniel. Hugo likes spaniels. A spaniel called Biffen.'

Tom was unimpressed.

'Sargent was in here ten minutes ago,' he said.

'Oh pissly piss. What was he after?'

Tickford wants to see you in his study straight away.'

'What for?'

'Dunno.'

'It can't be . . . does he want to see you as well? Or Sammy or Bollocks?'

Tom shook his head.

'He's got nothing on me,' said Adrian. 'He can't have.'

'Stout denial,' said Tom. 'It works every time.'

'Exactly. Brazen it out.'

'But I tell you,' warned Tom, 'there's definitely something up. Sargent looked scared.'

'Rubbish,' said Adrian, 'he hasn't the imagination.'

'Shit-scared,' said Tom.

The Housemaster's study was through the Hall. Adrian was surprised to see all the Prefects standing about in a cluster near the door that connected the boys' side of the House to Mr and Mrs Tickford's living quarters. They stared at him as he went through. They didn't jeer or look hostile. They looked . . . they looked shit-scared.

Adrian knocked on Tickford's door.

'Come in!'

Adrian swallowed nervously and entered.

Tickford was sitting behind his desk, fiddling with a letter-opener.

Like a psychopath toying with a dagger, thought Adrian.

The window was at Tickford's back, darkening his face too much for Adrian to be able to read his expression.

'Adrian, thank you for coming to see me,' he said. 'Sit down, please sit down.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Oh dear ... oh dear.'

'Sir?'

'I don't suppose you have any idea why I have sent for you?'

Adrian shook his head, a picture of round-eyed innocence.

'No, I should imagine not. No. I hope word has not got out.'

Tickford took off his glasses and breathed anxiously on the lenses.

'I have to ask you now, Adrian ... oh dear . . . it's all very . . .'

He replaced the glasses and stood up. Adrian could see his face clearly now, but still he couldn't read it.

'Yes, sir?'

'I'm going to have to ask you about your relationship with Paul Trotter.'

So that was it!

The moron had gone and blabbed to someone. The Chaplain probably. And vicious Dr Meddlar would have been only too keen to repeat it to Tickford.

'I don't know what you mean, sir.'

'It's a very simple question, Adrian. It really is. I'm asking you about your relationship with Paul Trotter.'

'Well, I haven't really . . . really got one, sir. I mean, we're sort of friends. He hangs around with me and Thompson sometimes. But I don't know him very well.'

'And that's it?'

'Well yes, sir.'

'It is terribly important that you tell me the truth. Terribly important.'

A boy can always tell when a master is lying, Adrian thought to himself. And Tickford isn't lying. It is very important.